


Give Me Light, Give Me Life

by orphan_account



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Drinking, First Time Blow Jobs, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, first time everything, first time kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-15
Updated: 2016-08-15
Packaged: 2018-08-08 21:37:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7774621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-war dreaming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Give Me Light, Give Me Life

In Lew’s dreams he was always in the Alps again, sitting in the grass beside Dick. He dreamed of this exact time and place often, although there was nothing particularly significant about it. They had climbed high into the mountains to get at the Eidelweiss and on the way back down, once they’d gotten away from the snow, they had sat in the grass and watched the reddest sunset Lew had ever seen. It wasn’t an exciting day; Dick wouldn’t fall down the side of the mountain and break his front tooth for another several weeks at least. Lew didn’t know why he dreamed himself there again and again, but then he didn’t know the reason for a lot of things now, six months post-war.

Dick was a great correspondent, Lew a terrible one. He had received a letter from Dick at least once a week since their separation at the end of the war, full of complaints about the incompetence of the replacement officers and anecdotes he knew would make Lew laugh. Since Dick had arrived home and met Lew’s parents, the letters had increased to twice a week but had suddenly become a little stiffer, a little formal. Lew knew he was embarrassed, if grateful, at the prospect of coming to New Jersey to work for Nixon Nitration, and he had planned not to stand on ceremony when Dick finally arrived in January.

He came in on a day miserable with wet snow. Lew imagined himself standing at the platform and watching the crowd, nodding at him through a throng of strangers, but in the end he fell asleep sitting up in the overheated station and woke when Dick nudged his knee. His first sight of Dick, tall and neat in his suit and black overcoat, made him smile more than he had intended to.

“You almost shaved,” Dick said. His cheeks and the tip of his nose were red with the cold. He extended his gloved hand to Lew to help him to his feet.

“Jesus, look at you,” Lew said when he was upright. Dick was shivering in short bursts. “How the hell did you grow up in Pennsylvania? They should have sent you to the Pacific anyway.”

“No body fat,” Dick said, rubbing his hands together. “But I guess you don’t have much either.”

“Well yeah, but I’m fortified,” Lew said. He picked up Dick’s small suitcase, put a hand on his elbow, and led him outside to the waiting, warm car. He expected Dick to say something about the driver, but he only lifted a sardonic eyebrow at Lew, who acknowledged it with a grin. The drive from Newark was nearly an hour in the traffic and snow, and it was almost fully dark by the time they reached his father’s house. They spent the time catching each other up on rumors they’d heard in the past few weeks – Dick had heard that Sobel might have gotten married in Paris, while Lew had heard that it was a mixup and it was a first lieutenant named Sanders who looked like Sobel – and complaining about how long it was taking to outprocess them both. Neither of them were completely out of the woods yet, and Dick was almost convinced that something might go wrong and he’d be forced into another post.

“What, don’t you want to be a lackey for some three-star in DC?” Lew asked.

“Don’t even say it,” Dick said. “If it comes true I’m sending you in my place.”

“You’re welcome to my job,” Lew said. “We could slap some boot polish in your hair. But I’d like to see you try to make your way through my wine cellar.”

“I’d have to start wearing sunglasses,” Dick said. Lew tossed the sunglasses, which were hooked onto one of his front pockets, at him. He tried them on, making a face.

“You look like my grandfather,” Lew said.

“When I was at _Yale_ ,” Dick began, and Lew pushed at him until he gave the sunglasses back.

*

Lew’s father, who had seemed neither pleased nor displeased to see him home from the war, also seemed indifferent about meeting one of Lew’s war buddies when they had gotten together for dinner in New York City in early December. But in his entire twenty-seven years of life Lew hadn’t figured out what his father did like, and anyway no one could fail to be impressed with Dick Winters after meeting him. Stanhope asked Lew to bring the boy on by when he got in, and so Lew brought the boy on by.

“How was Pennsylvania?” his father asked by way of greeting when they had settled into the parlor of the Nixon house. It was emptier than it had been several months before, when Lew’s mother had taken half the furniture and installed it in an apartment in the city.

“I had an excellent Christmas, sir,” Dick said, reaching out for a handshake that went unnoticed as Lew’s father had turned to light his cigar. Lew caught his attention and rolled his eyes, and Dick pulled his hand back in an _all right, then_ motion.

“Did my boy tell you I’m originally from Philadelphia?”

“Yes sir.” As had Stanhope, the first time they had met, but Dick was too polite to say so even if Lew wasn’t.

“I’d go back in a heartbeat,” Stanhope said, blowing out smoke. It was a blatant lie; he hated Philadelphia, and New Jersey for that matter. As soon as this business was concluded, he’d be on his way back to Florida.

“It’s a beautiful place.” From anyone else’s mouth, it would seem like a meaningless platitude, but Dick always meant what he said. It was one of Lew’s favorite things about him, although he wondered, not for the first time, if he was dragging Dick away from his home and his industrious, quiet future and he was only going along with it because he knew how badly Lew needed him.

“Now, I’ve been trying to figure out where to put you and I think I’ve got it. My son has given me to understand that you’re quite a strategic mastermind.” Stanhope looked at Dick directly for the first time.

Dick turned red and shifted a little. “That was nice of him,” he said, giving Lew a confused look. “It’s something I like to do.”

“Don’t be modest,” Lew said, nudging his shoulder. “He’s the reason we won the war. Ike was just a figurehead.”

“You think you can settle down for something a little less glamorous?”

“I’m not really looking for anything glamorous,” Dick said. Stanhope poured three glasses of scotch and passed one to Lew, looking a little put out when Dick passed. “I’d like to just work hard and get things done.”

“That’s what I like to hear.” He drained the glass neatly and went back for another. “Frankly I’m surprised you’re such good friends with my boy. I’m not sure he’d recognize hard work if it bit him in the ass.”

“You know, sir, Lew was one of my best combat officers,” Dick said. He managed to sound polite but faintly chastising, which Lew thought was a rare natural talent.

“I’d have liked to see that in person,” Stanhope said, unchastised. He clapped Dick on the shoulder and said, “Let’s see what Letty has for us this evening.”

Leticia had been the Nixons’ cook since before Lew was born, and had left with Lew’s mother. The new cook was a young man named Hank, although Lew’s father refused to acknowledge it. Lew had explained it to Dick in one of the few letters he’d written, and Dick flashed him an amused look across the table in the dining room when Lew’s father muttered disagreeably about Letty’s lobster Thermidor.

At the end of the meal when they had retired again to the parlor and Lew and his father were drinking scotch while Dick had coffee, Lew said, “We need a personnel manager. Hiring, firing, scheduling. That kind of thing.”

This wasn’t news to Dick; Lew had written about it in the same letter in which he’d written about Letty, and about his mother leaving. _I hate doing all this paperwork_ , he’d written, _but I know it’s your favorite. Come out here and get started on it, will you?_ And Dick had responded _Lewis, I will come to your office personally to have every single piece of paper signed by the boss. Count on it_.

“I’d like that very much,” Dick said.

Stanhope waved his glass at both of them, as if dismissing them from his sight. “If the boy vouches for you and you’ve got a knack for it, try it out and we’ll see how you do.”

It was a signal to leave, although Dick didn’t know it, and Lew stood and guided him out of the house. The car was ready by the time they had shrugged their coats on.

“I didn’t realize you lived somewhere else,” Dick said after they’d been in the car several minutes.

“Yeah, Kathy sold the other house from underneath me and I ended up renting something a few blocks from the plant.” He rubbed his hands together, blowing on them even though the car was warm. “Might buy it though. You’ll like it – there’s a fireplace in every bedroom.”

Dick tipped his head back a little and Lew realized he was surprised.

“What, did you think I was going to kick you out into the cold?”

“I guess I figured I’d board somewhere. Won’t it seem a little unorthodox to be staying with the boss?”

Lew snorted. “It’ll keep them on their toes is what it’ll do.”

“Well, once I get started I can chip in on the rent at least,” Dick said, and Lew thought _we’ll see about that_ , but when it came to money Dick was as immovable as a statue.

Lew had taken a room upstairs, with an ensuite bathroom, and he correctly thought Dick would choose the smallest downstairs bedroom with the least amount of what he would call frippery and Lew would call normal human comfort. But Lew was a fan of very comfortable beds, and the one in that room was a dream, so the joke was on Dick.

Lew leaned in the doorway as Dick set his suitcase down at the foot of the bed and loosened his tie.

“Does your father always do that?” he asked. At Lew’s questioning look he added, “Talk like you’re not in the room. I didn’t notice it when your mother and your sister were there, but it was hard not to with just the three of us.”

“Oh, that.” Lew tilted his head. “It’s better if he pretends I’m not there. Though I’m not sure he remembers what my actual name is.”

The expression on Dick’s face made Lew feel like Dick knew too much about him, suddenly, and he straightened.

“Anyway,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “You get settled in. I can make hot chocolate if you want some.”

Dick’s eyebrows shot up. “Hot chocolate?” he asked.

“Yeah, it’s about the only thing I can make. You’ll like it, it’s as thick as mousse.”

They drank the hot chocolate in the study. Lew hadn’t spent much time in there until now, but the room seemed to belong to Dick already. Maybe he had decorated with Dick in mind, he thought, just as Dick said, “This desk reminds me of the one I had in – where was it, Berchtesgaden? It was the only one I ever liked.”

Lew blew out a stream of smoke. “I found you asleep on it often enough.”

Dick smiled down at his hot chocolate. “That was combat rest.”

“You were drooling.”

“Lew,” Dick said, half-laughing, but Lew could see the color rising on his cheeks.

“I’m kidding you.” He watched Dick, who attacked the hot chocolate with slightly more energy. “But you do snore.”

“Good _night_ ,” Dick said, getting up to put his cup and spoon in the kitchen. But he came back in a few minutes later and leaned in the doorway. “Do you mind if I use that desk for a while?”

“Of course not. Why?”

“I was thinking of taking some classes this year. Business classes.” He looked a little nervous – at the thought of the classes or at telling Lew about them, Lew wasn’t sure.

“That’s great,” Lew said. “What for?”

He shrugged. “I need a refresher. I want to take a personnel management course, see if I’m any good at it.”

“Of course you’ll be good at it,” Lew said.

“Well, the GI Bill will pay for it, anyway.” Dick shrugged again, uncomfortably. “Good night. Thanks again for everything.”

“Night,” Lew said, and watched him go with some amusement.

He drank late into the evening, reading, and when he went up to bed he paused by Dick’s door. He could hear Dick’s quiet, steady breathing – the only time he’d ever heard actually Dick snore was in Bastogne when he’d caught the company head cold – and felt satisfied.

*

The next day Dick had already gone out and found a church, gone to a service, and come back by the time Lew was out of bed. The satisfaction he had felt the night before had carried into the morning when there was eggs and bacon and coffee and Richard Winters, spic-and-span, sitting across the table. They didn’t talk much, Lew because he was nonverbal for about an hour after waking and Dick because he never talked much.

When Lew was done with breakfast they cleaned and dried the plates together and finally Lew cleared his throat and said, “You could come in tomorrow to look around the place, if you wanted.”

“Yeah,” Dick said. “Yeah, sure.”

The light outside was pleasant for a change, sunny and a bit hard but, Lew was pleased to note, nothing at all like Belgium. He had a difficult time when it was overcast and wet and brittle, and always went out and drank it away. But in January here most days were sunny for a while at least, if cold, and he didn’t have much of an urge to go out when Dick was here to entertain him. He gave Dick an extra scarf and walked him around the parts of town closest to the house, pointing out good places to eat.

“The Fair Isle Inn is run by Mrs. Thornhill,” he said, “and she’s got a soft spot for bachelors who can’t cook, although on Sundays we’ll have to shift for ourselves.”

“I’m pretty sure we can handle bacon sandwiches,” Dick said.

“Wait until you’ve tried my attempts before you go saying things like that,” Lew said.

They passed a drug store, a clothing store, and small movie theater, which had all sprung up recently to cater to the young family men who were returning from the war and taking up work at the plant. Lew could see Dick didn’t much like the busy streets, though he kept it to himself.

“It’s less ugly in the spring,” Lew said eventually. “Not by much, but a little.”

“Your house isn’t ugly,” Dick said, with one of those sideways smiles that Lew liked.

“Well, there are trees.” He had chosen the house because once he was inside it, and especially once he was in the back yard, he didn’t feel like he was in New Jersey. He thought now – and wondered at how he hadn’t realized it before, it was so obvious – that he had probably picked a solid brick Georgian two-story with a plain white doorway because he thought Dick might like it. That he might stay longer if he did.

“Yeah, I like it,” Dick said. He smiled up at the sky like he was getting his bearings, and Lew felt a surge of deep satisfaction again.

*

Dick’s shout woke him in the night, as it had so many times. It broke through his dream – the Alps, always the Alps – and for a long confused minute he was in a foxhole in Bastogne again. He fought his way out of his bedclothes to get to what he thought was the surface of the hard-packed snow and frozen ground before he realized where he was. Even so, the floor was cold under his bare feet and he was still half in Belgium even as his body carried him in the direction of Dick’s voice, through the hall and down the stairs.

He almost burst into Dick’s room before he realized Dick might not want to be seen in whatever state he was in. Dick was like that sometimes. He could stand up to a lot of things, but not indignity.

“Dick,” he called out instead, standing just outside the door. “You okay in there or did the dog get you?”

It took a while, but the reply eventually came. “Did you get another dog?”

He rubbed his hands over his arms. “Nope.”

He heard Dick sigh. “I’m fine, Nix. Everything’s okay.”

“All right,” he said, but he stayed outside in the hallway for a while, hovering around the door like an anxious mother.

*

One of the things Lew liked least about this life he’d been dropped into after the war was that he had to wake up, and at the same time every day no less.

“This feels too familiar,” he mumbled when Dick was at his door at six, telling him to get on out of bed. He was generally able to stagger into his office around eight if he tried very hard, but Dick had him out the door by quarter to seven and he was even mostly cheerful about it.

Lew was younger than about half the floor managers at the plant, and they didn’t let him forget it, but he thought overall they liked him better than they liked his father. Lew didn’t interfere with the day-to-day workings and he was only just getting his feet under him trying to figure out what went where and how, so they felt comfortably superior to him. He knew they called him the young’un, which was fine, and sometimes the drunk one, which was also fine. He wasn’t predisposed to care much what they called him as long as they did their jobs, and it wasn’t exactly untrue. Julie, his secretary, kept him informed of what the workers had to say when he wasn’t around. She wasn’t impressed with him either, but she liked that he relied on her know-how. Anyone versed in gathering intelligence knew the scuttlebutt ran through assistants and secretaries.

“They’re not too happy you’re bringing in a war buddy,” she had told him.

“Well yeah, it’s nepotism,” he said, “but once they meet Dick they’ll feel better about him. Hell, they might even feel better about me.”

“Hmm,” Julie said.

But he could see it happening even as he Lew showed Dick around. By the time he was done meeting the morning shift guys, Burt and Jack and Joe Canham and Joe Antonetti and Joe Antonetti, Jr, Lew was pretty sure they’d all sworn fealty to him. Julie withheld judgment either way, but then Dick wasn’t at his best with women anywhere near his own age. He clammed up tight until he’d known them long enough to be comfortable, which could be anywhere from a month to never. It had taken nearly a year for Dick to admit to Lew that he was friends with a woman he wrote to regularly during the war, and even then all he said was that she was a nice girl who just wanted to know what the war in Europe was like. Lew thought she probably wanted more than that, but Dick never mentioned her again.

“Your office is pretty close to mine,” he said. “Mine has more windows.”

“Three more. Impressive,” Dick said, looking around. Lew’s office always started off tidy, but by noon there would be paper everywhere and a cloud of smoke a foot thick. Each evening Julie cleaned up after him and aired the room, and he promised himself he would be cleaner the next day and promptly forgot it.

Lew tapped an enormous stack of paperwork on the corner of his desk. “This is for you, my friend.”

“Ah,” Dick said. “Well, hand it over.”

“You want to start right now?”

“Might as well. I want to get a good look at how everything runs before I start scheduling anything,” he said.

“Well, then, take it from my sight,” Lew said, waving him off.

Two hours later Lew went looking for him and found him buried in paper, looking through daily shift reports from September.

“Hey. Yeah, hi,” he said, drawing it out the way he did when he was still half-involved in whatever he was reading.

“You want lunch?” Lew asked.

“Yeah, in a minute,” Dick said.

“Oh, I doubt that,” Lew said, and went out to get them both sandwiches.

*

Lew had bought a new cream Cadillac in November. Well, newish – he was fully aware that it was a 1941 model with a new coat of paint. It ran beautifully, however, and he loved to drive. He had left it at his parents’ house where it would be covered for the winter, and when he needed a ride anywhere he called for a car to come get him. Dick was uncomfortable with the arrangement, but Lew assured him it would only last until the spring and then he’d let him drive it all he wanted. The following Saturday Dick was gone when Lew rolled out of bed at noon, and when he arrived home it was in a coupe with most of the black paint rusted or peeling off.

“It runs fine,” Dick said as soon as he got out of the car. “It’s a ’33 but there’s a newer engine in there. Burt’s son wanted to get rid of it.”

“It’s not much to look at,” Lew said, sticking his finger under one section of the paint to chip it off. “Chevy?”

Dick shrugged with a grin. “Not every car can be a Cadillac, Lewis.”

“Well,” Lew said. “Are you gonna let me drive it?”

“Do you still drive like you did in Aldbourne?” Dick asked.

“No,” Lew said. “I was always drunk in Aldbourne.”

Dick raised his eyebrows.

“I’m not drunk _now_ ,” Lew said, and Dick tossed him the keys. The streets were clear and he drove fast, and it made Dick laugh even if he did say his driving hadn’t changed at all. They made it to New Brunswick and back in twenty minutes flat. Lew half-expected to be chastised but he wasn’t sure why; after all this time Dick had never once tried to stop him from doing anything he wanted. He knew all there was to know about Lew, no gilding on this lily, but there wasn’t any judgment. And it wasn’t that Dick was above that, because Lew knew from experience that he could pass judgment like a scornful deity. He just didn’t do it to Lew.

“I assume it will take about twice as long to get there when I drive,” Dick said when they were back in the driveway, a little windblown and very cold. Lew dropped the keys into his waiting palm and they rushed inside with a bundle of firewood apiece, building up the fire in the study.

“I could always drive you,” Lew said, opening the fireplace screen and laying down kindling.

“Twice a week? Right during happy hour?” Dick asked.

Lew wrinkled his nose and shook his head. “This is the personnel management class?”

Dick nodded. “And a regular management class, maybe.”

“Is that what’s next? You want to run a business?” Lew asked over his shoulder. He held out a hand and Dick pressed one of the long matches into it. “You could do my job. I’m really not kidding.”

“I’ve been thinking about a farm. Someday,” Dick said, rubbing a hand over his chin. “But as for what’s next, I’m not sure. I guess it should be getting married, but I don’t know about that.”

“As the only person in this house who’s been married, I’d say you can wait a while,” Lew said. He tried to imagine Dick married and could almost see it – coming home from work every day to dinner, reading before the fire, going to bed at nine and waking before dawn to work on the farm – but the moment he tried to imagine a wife there he snapped the screen shut before the fire had caught entirely. He stood up and wiped his hands off on his pants, glaring at them before he went to the sideboard and poured himself a drink.

“It’s just not something I’ve been able to think about,” Dick said.

“Your problem is you’ll never really respect anyone who didn’t serve with you,” Lew said. “You don’t trust anyone who wasn’t there all the way from Toccoa.”

Dick gave him one of his long, faraway looks before he sighed. “Yeah, I think you’re right about that. It’s probably a little unfair.”

“Yeah, well, someday you’ll meet a girl and you’ll know that if she’d been able to go to war, she’d have done it just like you did, and that’ll be it. Mrs. Dick Winters.” Lew lifted his glass and drank a toast to the imaginary future woman Dick would marry. He drained it fast, filled the glass and drank another rapid-fire.

“You don’t seem too pleased about that prospect,” Dick said.

“The sooner you get married, the sooner you’ll move onto greener pastures,” Lew said. “And who’ll manage my personnel if you’re gone?”

“We might both move onto greener pastures.” Dick gave him a wry smile. “You’re more likely to get married than I am.”

“If I ever start mooning over someone again,” Lew said, “just say the words ‘she took the dog,’ and I’ll get over it.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Dick said.

“It’s a great comfort that I’ll never have to worry about you mooning,” Lew said. He imagined Dick married again, tried to make himself see Dick acting lovesick over someone, but the image wouldn’t come. What would he look like if he tried to tell a woman he loved her, Lew wondered? He’d probably never say the words. Anyone hoping for romance from Dick Winters was doomed to lifelong disappointment. You could say things in moments of passion that might not come out as easily any other time – sex was a great motivator – but Lew couldn’t see Dick as the kind of man who would let himself be swept away by pleasure. He’d clench his teeth and force himself not to make any noise, Lew thought, if he even allowed himself to enjoy it.

“Dinner?” Dick said, and Lew realized he was staring sightlessly at the floor around Dick’s feet.

“Yeah,” he said, knocking back the rest of his drink.

*

Somewhere in the second week of January, the shouting started happening every night. Lew usually fell into bed around one, and Dick woke him around three or four hollering in the dark. If Lew stood just outside the door and asked if Dick was all right, Dick would wake up and say he was fine, but Lew’s concern had moved from bad to very bad. He didn’t remember Dick having any problems sleeping – like everyone in the company, he had learned to drop off and wake up at will – and he certainly wasn’t given to nightmares. They pulled you off the line if you yelled like that while everyone was trying to stay quiet.

“Is this a new thing?” he asked one night when Dick actually got up and came into the kitchen with him, wrapped up in his flannel robe.

“New since around Christmas,” Dick said. He had a glass of water in front of him; Lew’s, of course, was whisky. “To tell you the truth, I think my parents were glad to get me out of the house.”

“What do you dream about?” Lew realized the question was stupid, and said, “I mean, is there something in particular?”

“This and that,” Dick said. “The problem is that I’m really there. It’s not like a dream at all.”

Lew thought about his dream of the Alps: the grass damp and spiky under his fingers, sweat drying on his forehead.

“You’ve only been home six weeks,” Lew said. “Maybe you should take a little break. Relax.”

Dick picked up the glass with a shaking hand, and took a sip. “I think taking a break is what started it in the first place. No, I need things to concentrate on.”

The nightmares had begun to come every night since he’d started working, but Lew didn’t mention that. He waited until Dick had finished his water and gone back to bed, and then he waited a little longer.

*

There came a night when Lew couldn’t wake him. He waited outside the door, shivering and hopping from foot to foot, hissing, “Dick, wake up,” for a good minute while the wordless shouting continued, angry, like he was fighting something in his sleep. It made the hair stand up on Lew’s arms to hear it, goosebumps everywhere, and he wavered. If he went in and saw something Dick didn’t want him to see – 

Just as he had put his hand on the door to push it all the way open, Dick’s voice rose to a shout again and broke.

“Well, you asked for it,” Lew muttered, and went in. In the firelight it was easy to see Dick kneeling on the bed, his hands balled into fists. As soon as Lew stepped into the room he woke and turned to him, wild-eyed. Lew knelt on the edge of the mattress and touched his shoulder and Dick pushed him away hard, scrambling back on the bed before he seemed to come back into himself.

“Jesus,” he gasped. His hand, trembling, reached up to cover his eyes. “Jesus, Lew, that was a bad one.”

His breath wheezed in and out like he had just run Currahee, and Lew saw he was crying – not much, just a little, and he didn’t seem aware of it. It pushed Lew over some kind of line he’d drawn without realizing it, and he stood up.

“Here, come on,” he said, pushing and prodding Dick until he was lying down again before he crawled under the covers beside him. He was already preparing arguments in favor of his decision as he slid his feet into the cool area close to the end of the bed where the sheets were tucked in.

“Lew,” Dick said. His voice was shot, but there was still a clear warning in it.

“I know, I know,” Lew said, turning toward him. He opened his mouth to say that it was three in the damn morning and he was sick of banging his shin on the chair in the hallway every time he ran to Dick’s room, but Dick reached for him first, dragging him closer by his undershirt. Lew’s arms went around him easily like they did this every day, although he couldn’t think of a time they’d ever hugged before, not even bundled up together to stay warm in the Ardennes. Dick slept in his long johns, Lew noticed suddenly with a smile. Of course he did.

“I hate to wake you up,” Dick said. He was shivering so hard his teeth chattered. Lew pulled him in even tighter so he rested his forehead on Lew’s shoulder.

“I hate to wake me up too,” Lew said, smoothing his hand over Dick’s back.

They were quiet for a while. Lew was in and out, lured into a doze by the snug warmth and the rhythm of his own hand, back and forth, until Dick was still and his breath had stopped rattling out of him.

“You didn’t have to,” Dick began.

“Ssh,” Lew mumbled. “I’m sleeping.”

In his dream he was up in the mountains in Austria again, sitting beside Dick. He had found himself watching Dick watching the view, arms wrapped around his legs like a kid, his face solemn as always and his eyes full of awe. They were tired and quiet, and Lew felt as if he had been hollowed out and made new again. In real life they had remained silent and climbed the rest of the way down without incident, but in the dream Dick leaned against his shoulder with a sigh.

“We can never come back here,” he said, and Lew woke up. He tended to jerk awake and kick, but this was a smooth transition from sleeping to waking, and he was glad because Dick was still curled up tight on him, his breath warming the space between Lew’s shoulder and neck. Dick would want to be woken up and pushed away, left to his own devices, but Lew was more content, more utterly comfortable, than he had been in years. The wind was fierce around the house, whistling through the eaves, and he was not out there in the cold.

It was a thought that had occurred to him many times since the beginning of winter, but without any measure of peace that he could divine. He’d gone into the city and gone out dancing nearly every weekend before Dick had joined him in New Jersey and there was something comforting about that after all. He was free; no one was trying to kill him and there was no danger of him having to kill anyone either. There was the thrill of being outside himself, between the booze and the music, that he never found anywhere else. And of course he’d gone back to a hotel room or two or three with a woman. Not as many as before the war; there was something about him now that hadn’t been there before and it drove them away as often as it drew them in. He refused to feel bad about any of it. Lew Nixon did what made him feel good and he didn’t treat people shabbily or trick them. If a woman went to bed with him she was in it for the fun as much as he was. And it was fun – he wasn’t lying to himself about that. It just didn’t get at the core of him the way it must have before. That core needed something and without it his sleep felt thin, his nerves strung just a little too tight, his skin scraped over with sandpaper. The whisky worked as a good mask, but nothing ever really touched it. Maybe it never would go away and he’d end up like those old soldiers who never talked about anything but the war in the hopes that they might finally someday puzzle out the meaning of it and be free.

Here, in this bed with the warm weight of Dick’s body on his and their legs tangled together, his slow in-and-out breathing and one of Lew’s hands carelessly tucked up under his shirt, the war had never been closer to him and yet he felt at ease. They were refugees, the two of them, not of a country but of a moment in time to which they would never want to return but which would never let them go. They had to live inside and outside of it forever.

*

In the morning Dick was furiously embarrassed. Not that you’d notice, of course, if you weren’t Lew Nixon, but his tight smile and nod at breakfast was a dead giveaway. He didn’t find an excuse to visit Lew all day and Lew didn’t seek him out either. Dick always needed to work things out on his own, and wouldn’t budge until he had come to his own conclusions. Lew expected it to disrupt their evening ritual, but Dick settled down with his books as usual, flipping on the radio when Lew lingered in the doorway with his drink. He leaned against the frame and watched Dick at the desk, opening his book and sharpening his pencil, setting the paper down and smoothing it out as he always did. Lew had always envied the order and precision of his mind, if not his ways, but it had become affection over the years rather than hardening into irritation or jealousy. He imagined the inside of Dick’s head as a clean quiet room, early in the morning with the sun just coming in through the window. His own head was something more like a dank nightclub floor covered in cigarettes butts and tipped-over beer bottles.

“Are you going to watch me study all night?” Dick asked.

“I always do,” he said.

Dick snorted. “No wonder you’ve only made it through two books since I got here.”

Lew hadn’t realized how tight his shoulders were until they suddenly relaxed. “You do this thing where you underline something and then tap your lip with your pencil three times. It’s really distracting.”

“You could read somewhere else.”

“Nah.” He tipped his glass back to drain it, then sauntered over to the sideboard to fill it again. “You’re more entertaining. The best is when you’re confused about something and you make this face –”

He screwed up his mouth and nose like he was going to sneeze, and Dick rewarded him with one of his rare laughs. “I probably make that face a lot,” he said.

“You chose a life of numbers, now you’ve gotta lie down with it,” Lew said.

Dick stared into the fire, a faint smile still on his face. Lew sat in his chair and set his book on his knee and watched Dick instead, waiting.

“Sorry about last night,” Dick said after a few minutes.

“Nothing to be sorry about,” Lew said.

“Yeah.” Dick stood, walking over to the fire and standing before it with his arms wrapped around his middle like he regretted standing in the first place. “There is. You’ve been nice enough to let me stay here, give me a job, and I keep ruining your sleep.”

“Just stop, stop right there,” Lew said drily. “You know you’re doing me a huge favor, right? And you’re not ruining my sleep. You have to have sleep already for it to be ruined.”

“Lew.” Dick’s voice was soft suddenly, concerned.

“Don’t worry about me.” Lew waved him off. “All I’m saying is that last night was the best I’ve slept since 1941. Maybe all I needed was to be slowly suffocated by a Mennonite.”

Dick smiled over his shoulder, although Lew could see that he was blushing. “Well, if that’s all you needed.”

Lew let him lean against the wall and stare into the fire again for a while in silence.

“I don’t understand why it’s happening now,” he said eventually, rubbing his lower lip. “Something like what happened to Buck – I mean, it’s easy to see why. Cause and effect. But the war is over. Things are good.”

“Freud said surviving certain death delivers a shock your brain can’t handle, and you just keep reliving it and trying to make sense of it,” Lew said, swirling his glass. “But who pays attention to that guy?”

“That doesn’t make much sense. It’s not my death I’m reliving,” Dick said. He stalked back and forth in front of the fire with his hands on his hips.

“It’s probably because you never cared much about dying yourself,” Lew said. “You dream about the men dying. I know you do, I’ve heard you yelling your head off about it.”

Dick shrugged first, then lifted his eyes to Lew and nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “And that – that boy I told you about. In Holland. I can’t shake him, Lew.”

“Yeah, well, you destroyed something,” Lew said. Dick’s face made him think for a moment that he was destroying something too, but he forged ahead anyway. “The rest of them were soldiers, worthy opponents. He was just a kid. You had to do it, but you wouldn’t be human if it didn’t burn you a little. And y’know, you’re pretty close to being an angel, Dick, but you’re still stuck down here with the rest of us.”

Dick said nothing for a while, as Lew watched him. “An angel, huh,” he said, with that small smile that Lew liked best.

“They were so white they blinded people too,” Lew said, and got up to refill his glass.

*

That night there was no shouting, and the night after that, and the night after that. Lew found himself feeling a little disappointed and was annoyed over it. _How’s that for friendship_ , he thought. _You want a sleeping buddy bad enough to get him screaming in the night_. And yet no matter how glad he was that Dick’s nightmares had stopped for a few days, he listened each night for any noise, anything that meant Dick might need him.

On the fourth night he was still awake when it started. He’d never been aware enough from the beginning to hear what Dick said, but tonight it was clear through the hallway and upstairs into Lew’s room. _Get Regiment on the line. Come on Lew. C’mon._ It was quiet for a few moments and Lew thought maybe he had drifted back to sleep, but then he started up again. _Move, move, move_ , he cried out, loud and angry, and Lew was out of bed and down the stairs before he really got shouting.

The fire in Dick’s room was still going strong and the room was too warm. Dick was out of the bed and bellowing at the window, his shirt sticking damply to his back and his face shiny with sweat.

“Shit,” Lew said. A shouting man in bed he could probably handle; an enraged and senseless Dick Winters he definitely could not. On his best day he couldn’t wrestle Dick and win, and this was far from his best day.

He dodged around Dick and opened the window so a big frigid flurry of wind burst into the room. It struck him full in the face and he gasped, but it also woke Dick up.

“What–” He looked down at himself and stumbled, and Lew rushed to his side, lowering him to the rug before he fell on it. Snow gusted into the room and onto them and the fire flew up in response, and Lew shut the window and dusted himself off, muttering. When he turned around Dick was sitting with his elbows propped on his knees, staring blankly at the rug.

“You awake?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

Lew sat down beside him and touched his shoulder, but recoiled. “Jesus, you’re soaking wet. Why don’t you go dry off and change and I’ll tamp the fire down a little.”

Dick stood and went out to the bathroom in the hallway without a word while Lew opened the screen to the fireplace and began to poke at it. Moving some of the logs away from each other settled it down a little, and by the time he was done Dick was back in the room in just his black PT shorts, retrieving one of his undershirts from the bureau. He leaned against it with both hands for a minute, his head hanging. Lew watched the bare, pale line of his back, his shoulder blades, the freckles spread over the top of his shoulders where the sun hit him in the summer, and felt like he wanted to poke at the fire again until he broke the logs down into bits. He stood and tugged the blankets on the bed down with unnecessary force.

“Here,” he said when Dick didn’t move, helping him to pull his shirt over his head. Dick kept his eyes shut the entire time, his lips tight, looking like he was going to be sick. Lew urged him toward the bed and climbed in after him, but was stopped by Dick’s hand on his arm.

“You shouldn’t,” he said hoarsely.

“Do you want me to leave?” Lew asked.

Dick was slow to answer, and Lew wondered how awake he really was. “If you want to get back to your own bed–”

“For God’s sake, Dick,” he muttered, moving to get up.

“Nix,” Dick said, his fingers clamping down on Lew’s arm. He didn’t ask him to stay, but his white, pinched face and the desperation with which he held onto Lew said everything.

“Yeah,” Lew said. “Yeah, all right.”

It was still warm but he pulled Dick close anyway. Dick’s bare legs slid against his own and it sent a shiver all through him, his scalp tightening.

“I guess you were in Foy again, huh?” he said.

“I was yelling at those – all those dead boys in the snow,” Dick said into Lew’s shirt. “Yelling at them to get up and finish the assault. God, I don’t want to remember it.”

“I wouldn’t either,” Lew said.

“What do you dream about?” Dick asked suddenly. “Do you remember your dreams?”

Lew paused with his hand drifting over Dick’s back. “Yeah,” he said. “I dream about the Alps. Almost every night actually.”

Dick sighed. “That sounds really nice.”

“Yeah. It’s peaceful,” Lew said. He didn’t feel like explaining that Dick was always there in the dreams. It puzzled him and he didn’t like to talk about things that puzzled him.

“You remember when we went up to get the Eidelweiss?” Dick asked.

Lew raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Sure,” he said. “I think.”

“Is it weird that it’s one of the best days I’ve ever had?” Dick shifted, settling more comfortably against Lew. “It seems like that shouldn’t be right.”

“Nah, it’s not weird. That was a good day,” Lew said, tightening his arms around him.

*

On Sunday it was Dick’s birthday. Dick had never mentioned it but Lew had found out somewhere along the line, he couldn’t remember how, and each year he managed to get together a big group to sing happy birthday and embarrass the hell out of him. This year he pretended he’d forgotten about it and got Hank to bake a small chocolate cake. Coupons for butter and sugar were starting to be easier to come by, but it still took some doing between the two of them, and when Lew smuggled the cake home and into the icebox he felt as proud of it as if he’d baked it himself. After dinner he brought it out with a little candle stuck haphazardly in the middle and set it in front of Dick, then dropped his dog tags beside it.

“Lew.” Dick looked startled and touched, as well as slightly apprehensive, as if all of Easy Company might pop out from behind the curtains to sing at him.

Lew shrugged. “Well. You’re old.”

Dick ran a finger over the dog tags. “What are these for?” Then he seemed to realize and added, “Oh.”

“Yeah.” Lew pulled his out of his pocket and jangled them like change. “Thought we might throw them in the woods.”

Dick looked down at them thoughtfully and said, “Yeah, let’s go.”

Lew hadn’t been certain Dick would agree; his terminal leave ended the next day and Dick seemed superstitious about it, as well as being an inveterate rule-follower nine times out of ten. But he slid on his boots and one of Lew’s sweaters and followed him outside to the back of the house, running to the edge of the property where it met the woods. The sun had set but there was a little light left, and the sky reminded Lew of his dream. He rubbed the dog tags together between his hands and then, laughing, his breath fogging the air, he threw them hard into the woods. He heard them land but didn’t see them, and turned to watch Dick. Dick was shivering and looked serious, like they were following a sacred ritual, but when Lew rubbed his arms to warm him up he smiled and raced him back to the house.

In the evening Lew followed Dick into the bedroom after he had changed. It was early as hell and Lew wasn’t sleepy, but he was damned if he’d go through another night like the previous one.

“What are you doing?” Dick asked when Lew stood beside the bed with his hands on his hips.

“Sleeping here,” he said.

Dick squinted at him. “That’s a little weird, Lew, don’t you think?”

“Nope.” He jerked his chin toward the bed. “If I’m already here, I can just reel you back in if you start yelling.”

Dick sighed, shoulders dropping. He scrubbed his hands over his face. “Yeah,” he said. “I don’t like this.”

“I know,” Lew said. “But just think, you’re helping me. I sleep like a baby next to you.”

“I think I’m the one sleeping like a baby,” Dick said, helping Lew turn down the covers. Once they had slid under them he lay on his back staring at the ceiling. “You don’t find it strange at all?”

Lew had turned on his side, facing away, but he sighed and rolled over. “What’s normal now? We’ve slept in close quarters before, and after the last three years I don’t know what’s ever going to be normal again.”

Dick stared at him solemnly. “I want it to be. I have to move on, Lew.”

“Is that what the business courses are really about?” Lew asked. Dick was right – it felt strange to be in bed beside him, but in a pleasant way, almost as if twenty years had dropped away and Dick was a playmate staying over for the night. It didn’t feel at all like they were in a foxhole.

“Yeah, a little. I guess I feel like I need to keep moving. If I stop…”

“If you stop, what? A boogeyman will get you?”

“Something. I’ve been in a bad funk since I got home.” He sounded like he was confessing a terrible sin. Lew supposed for Dick it was pretty terrible.

“You and me both.” Lew had meant to sound sardonic, but both it and his accompanying smirk didn’t quite hit the mark.

“Am I making it worse?” Dick asked.

Lew shook his head. “I’d be a lot worse off if you weren’t here.”

Dick made a noise that wasn’t quite a laugh. “I spent the entire last year wanting to get away from the war but now I don’t know what to do.”

“I don’t either,” Lew admitted.

“I guess eventually we’ll figure out where we belong again,” Dick said.

It was on the tip of Lew’s tongue to say they belonged here together, but Dick was already falling asleep and it seemed a strange point to make anyway.

Lew stayed with him each night after that, and each night Dick asked him if he was sure he wanted to do it. Eventually he stopped but still seemed slightly harassed. Whenever he started shouting hoarsely near dawn, Lew poked him in the back and said, “Quiet, you,” which worked most nights. When it didn’t, when he got up and started wandering the house, Lew went after him and got him out of his sweaty clothes and led him back to bed. In prep school he’d had a friend, Terry, whose father was French. He’d spent four years in the trenches, and Terry confessed he couldn’t wait to come back to school each year because his father woke the household every night with screaming fits, hitting anyone who came near him and nearly strangling Terry’s mother twice. Lew had those stories in the back of his head whenever Dick couldn’t be woken immediately, although it never took long to get him there and Lew was very careful not to touch him.

“I keep thinking I’ll wake up one of these times with my rifle in my hands,” Dick whispered one early morning.

“I’m more worried you’re going to wander out into the street and get hit by a car,” Lew said. “I’m thinking about getting a leash.”

Dick shut his eyes tight. “Whatever it takes,” he said, looking ill. “Don’t let me –”

“Don’t, don’t worry,” Lew said in a low voice, “I won’t let anything happen.”

As close as they were, Lew could feel Dick’s heartbeat racing, his body wracked with shivering like they were in Bastogne again. He was certain there was something more he could do, some step he could take – it felt like there were words he should be able to say to fix the problem but he hadn’t found them yet – and the frustration of it made him grind his teeth as he never had before.

His dreams: the Alps as always, Dick watching the sunset as always.

“We can never come back here,” Dick said.

“I _know_ , goddammit,” Lew said.

*

In the middle of February, there was a three-day snowstorm that socked in the entire town. The first day the snow was heavy and wet and the fog pressed in hard at the windows. Lew had once rather liked this kind of weather; it appealed to something quiet and melancholy inside him and he appreciated when like called to like. But now it was Bastogne weather. Sometimes he imagined he could smell pine in the fog and it made him gag. He and Dick squabbled like tired children, with no heat behind it but plenty of irritation. On the third day the snow turned dry and that evening it grew clear and diamond cold. Lew settled down in the living room in a bad temper, not wanting to read and watch Dick study but unable to think of anything else to do.

After ten minutes of listening to the slow scratch of Dick’s pencil, he sighed a little too loudly and Dick slowly put down the pencil and closed his book.

“You got snowshoes?” he asked.

“Probably somewhere. Why, you making a break for Pennsylvania?”

“I thought we could go for a walk, get out of here for a while. It’s stuffy.” He looked at Lew with his face open and expectant, eyebrows slightly raised.

Lew rubbed his chin, pretending to weigh his options. “We’ll make coffee after?” he asked.

“Hot chocolate,” Dick promised.

“That’s all you had to say. Bribery accepted.” He threw his book aside and ventured into the attic to find the boxes he’d moved from his parents’ house. Some were packed neatly with his mother’s writing on the side, but most he’d thrown together too hastily for labeling, and it took him half an hour to find two and a half pairs of snowshoes stuffed into four different boxes.

“These might be small,” he said. “I think I wore them in prep school.”

“That’s fine,” Dick said, holding one up against his foot. “My feet are a little smaller than yours anyway.”

It wasn’t true – they wore the same size boots, which Lew knew after years of scrounging new uniforms for both of them – but Lew let the polite lie slide and soon they were outside stomping through the snow. The property was attached to a field through a path in the woods, and Dick led the way like he knew it better than Lew did. He probably did, Lew realized. He could imagine Dick going for a run through there in the morning to work off some excess energy. The field, owned by one of the neighbors Lew hadn’t met yet, covered nearly an acre and in the summer it would be filled with wheat. When Lew had moved in there was a big tree on the far side of the field, but it was only a stump now. Lew thought that in the spring his neighbor would pull the stump out and was absurdly sad.

He huffed behind Dick, who set a punishing pace at first until he remembered he was with Lew. The cold stung his eyes and the inside of his nose and he was reminded of Bastogne again, but this time without any accompanying emotion. He was relieved. There would be a lot of places and things, he assumed, that would remind him of Belgium, and he couldn’t always go into a funk when he stumbled onto them.

Lew was sweaty by the time they reached the stump, but it felt like it was steaming off him and that he was sweating out the sour restlessness that had had the two of them snapping at each other. Dick sat on the stump, panting, and patted the spot next to him. His heartbeat began to slow and the sweat cooled, but Lew stayed where he was, looking up at the moon. It was so bright the snow was bluish.

“I remember it being like this in the air,” Dick said. “Cold and still and quiet. Like everything had stopped moving but me.”

Lew could barely remember how he had felt before each jump, only the feeling of jumping – he was so surprised at the rush of air every time, stealing the breath out of his lungs and throwing him back, away from the safety of the plane, making him feel absurdly abandoned no matter how many times he did it. But there was a serenity to it that pushed out all other emotion. Every second was so perfectly clear from the beginning of each battle until the end of it. Nothing else was like it and he wondered if it could be, if he would be able to handle that clarity in everyday life or if it would make him crazy.

They leaned together. The unbroken snow created a blanket of quiet around them and both seemed reluctant to speak or to leave. After a while Lew turned to Dick, who had tilted his head back and was looking up at the stars. His clear-cut profile was outlined in the moonlight. Lew was breathless suddenly – it all seemed so – he shuddered and Dick returned to earth.

“Are you frozen solid?” he asked with a grin.

“Dreaming of cocoa,” Lew said. It was only half a lie.

In his dreams that night he and Dick watched the sunset over the mountains as usual. Lew had tugged Dick’s pant leg up and was running his thumb over the dark pink scar on his leg.

“We can never come back here,” Dick said, pushing his hand away.

“I know we can’t,” Lew told him, and when he woke up he was hit with an unaccountably heavy wave of sadness. It engulfed him so completely that his chest felt like it was being crushed, and he had to sit up to reassure himself that he could breathe.

Dick woke up the instant he moved. Unlike Lew, he was always alert the moment he opened his eyes, and he stretched for a second before he said, “You all right?”

Lew shook his head. “No, I don’t think I am.”

Dick shifted over on the bed. “Come here then, if you want. The least I can do is return the favor.”

Lew allowed himself to be pulled close, folding up against him.

“Was your dream bad?” Dick murmured in his ear.

“No,” he choked out. “I don’t know what it is.”

Dick was a _buck up, champ_ sort of man, about as good at comfort as Lew was at being comforted, and his movements were stiff and awkward but kind, as though he had never touched anyone before but wanted to make a good go of it. He didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands at first, but after a while they grew slower, with a dragging tenderness that was nicer than anything Lew had felt for ages, and that somehow made everything worse. The sadness tightened to a point and he could only breathe hard into Dick’s shirt, until finally he jerked away and tumbled out of the bed like Dick had pushed him.

“I need – a drink,” he said unsteadily, scrubbing his hands over his face. He left without looking at Dick to see his reaction. In the study, he drank with a straightforward desire to be drunk, like he hadn’t for quite some time. Some evenings he ended up a little drunk without any particular effort, but tonight he drank like he was in Berchtesgaden again.

He was sick twice and thunderously hungover in the morning when Dick woke him up, slumped over in his chair, but whatever the strange sadness was, it was gone and he was determined it should stay that way.

*

On Saturday of that week he had finally had enough and dragged Dick out into the city for some dancing. Dick must have known how much he needed to get away because he didn’t protest at all, and when they hit the Hurricane Lew left him at the bar and dragged a girl in a short skirt out onto the floor in under a minute. The place was full of college kids and Lew felt ancient, but the music was loud and he wasn’t half-bad at dancing and he felt like he was trying to cut something out of himself that couldn’t be excised entirely by any other means. By the time he made it back to the bar Dick was leaning against it and talking easily with another GI – it was clear by the cut of his hair and his stiff bearing, his general discomfort with the crowd, although he wasn’t wearing a uniform.

“Lew,” Dick said, patting him on the back. “This is Mr. Phil Hanson. He was with the 508th.”

“Nice to meet you,” Lew said, and shook his hand and was back out on the dance floor before anyone could say anything. He didn’t want to talk to anyone at all that night, least of all another paratrooper, not when he could pretend he’d never been to Europe and never heard of jumping out of a plane and never, he thought with a painful pinprick of guilt, known a Major Dick Winters. He didn’t want to write Dick off entirely, he just wanted them to be two civilized men in a world where the war had never happened. He wished they’d known each other when they were children, that there were no times in Dick’s life that Lew couldn’t claim.

He danced too much to stay very drunk, even though the liquor flowed fast. There was a girl, Lucy, who gave him a significant look when the hall closed, but he gave her a kiss on the cheek with no regrets and let Dick steer him toward the boarding house.

“You could have stayed with her, you know,” Dick said. The room had two beds, which struck Lew suddenly as a sensible answer to Dick’s problem. He wondered if Dick was thinking the same thing and hoped he wasn’t. He didn’t want to sleep apart from him, and he didn’t like it right now. It was the only sour note of the evening. The bed was hard and the sheets were scratchy, but he wouldn’t have minded if he’d been next to Dick and, he thought with a particularly poignant sadness that he had to attribute to the booze, he only had one pillow.

“Stayed?” he asked, trying to get comfortable. “No, that wasn’t on the table tonight.”

“You don’t need to look after me. I want you to have fun,” Dick said. He looked young and tired, and Lew felt guilty for keeping him out so late.

“I had fun. You saw.”

“I like to watch you dance,” Dick said. “You look like you’re in another world.”

Lew rolled over, then rolled back. “I’m never gonna get to sleep,” he said indignantly, and fell asleep.

There was something a little different in the air between them the next day. They ate at the Ruby Slipper and Lew ate biscuits and bacon until he could barely move. He felt good, better than he deserved. Dick nudged his shin companionably throughout the meal and told him about the man he’d met, now that Lew was in a mood to listen. He realized on the train home that Dick had touched him more than usual all day, and the evening before too – a hand on his lower back when he was introducing him, an arm around him when he stumbled on the way to the boarding house. On the train he arranged himself so his shoulder was behind Lew’s and Lew was leaning against him. He hadn’t even noticed, had only noticed he felt comfortable. It wasn’t like Dick, who kept himself to himself. Lew was used to affectionate friends but he had never minded Dick’s standoffishness. It had never come across as diffidence, but rather like he was from an alien world where no one touched or talked about anything. When Lew or Harry horsed around with him he’d duck his head and get red and embarrassed, the same way he did when anyone teased him about going out on the town with a girl. He was deeply shy in ways that were confusing, because in so many other ways you couldn’t find a less shy man. But that was just Dick, and Lew thought maybe after all this time he had learned to loosen up a little. He didn’t know, but he liked it.

“We could get two beds in here,” he said cautiously that night, back in their own house.

Dick’s eyebrows drew together as though he’d never thought of such a thing. “I guess we could,” he said. “Seems like a hassle for something temporary, though.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Lew said, burrowing deep into the blankets.

*

He woke to warmth, too much of it, with Dick still facing him as he had been when they fell asleep. Dick’s hand was on his arm, his fingers squeezing and loosening, squeezing and loosening. Lew thought at first that he’d been awakened by the brush of Dick’s leg against his, but Dick was making soft, low noises. Lew put a hand on his hip.

“Hey, wake up,” he mumbled with a little shake, liking the feel of the cotton under his hand and the curve of muscle underneath it, which flexed as Dick moved. Lew’s mind cleared with a jolt, feeling the gentle rocking motion, and realization hit him like a punch to the solar plexus. He bit his lip and shuddered, tightening his hand on Dick’s hip, unsure if he wanted to still him or drag him closer. He felt stupid, suddenly, thick and stupid with his cock stiff and Dick burning hot beside him. Understanding – god, he understood it all – stunned him into indecision.

Dick startled awake, taking the choice away from him. He stared at Lew, wide-eyed and dazed and damp around the edges, breathing hard.

“You were just,” Lew said. “Having a dream.”

“Was I?”

He was still shifting around clenching and unclenching his fingers on Lew’s arm and Lew knew, with a dizzying burst of heat that spread through his abdomen and down between his legs, that he must have been right on the edge of coming and was still there, almost unable to back down. He squeezed Dick’s hip again and licked his lips. _About to do something stupid_ , he thought. How had he ever forgotten what it felt like right before he was about to jump? It was exactly like this. His heartbeat fluttered wildly. He leaned across the six inches of space between them and kissed first the corner of Dick’s mouth and then directly on his warm lips.

He expected surprise but Dick returned his kiss instantly, moaning. Lew jumped. He pushed at Dick’s hip and rolled them so he was on top, pressing him down into the mattress, fitting himself between his thighs. Dick writhed under him, bucking his hips, and Lew was shocked at the rigid line of his cock and the thrill of rubbing against it. Dick’s hands came up to his shoulders, lighting here and there tentatively. Lew grabbed them and flattened them against the bed, rocking against him and watching astonished pleasure cross his face before he kissed him again, warm, fervent kisses he could barely keep up with. Dick squeezed his fingers like he needed to hold onto something and pushed up, up, up, tangling their legs together to get leverage.

Lew let go of Dick’s hands and slid his fingers into his hair instead, messing it up, and the moment he did it Dick fell apart. Lew felt the whole long body beneath him go corkscrew tight before Dick choked out “ah – _ah_ ” against his lips and came. Release hit him hard. His hips jerked up again and again, his face beautiful and ecstatic. Lew stroked his cheek with the back of his fingers and Dick turned into it and kissed the knuckles, eyes closed.

After a few moments Lew lifted up, propping himself with one arm. Dick was sprawled out, chest heaving, with his hands still on the bed where Lew had pressed them, his lips swollen and his shirt rucked up above his stomach. Lew inched down the bed and kissed the bare, freckled skin as he slid a hand inside his own shorts, where he was so desperately hard it was almost agonizing to touch himself. Dick watched him with half-lidded eyes, his mouth open.

“Are you –” he said.

“Yeah.” Lew rocked into his own hand, leaning his head on Dick’s stomach and moaning. Dick tugged on his arm until he moved up the bed again. He cupped the back of Lew’s head, pulling him down and kissing him in the same awkward, sweet fashion he had before. Lew lengthened the kisses, drawing them out, until Dick followed his lead. It occurred to him that he might be teaching him how to kiss and the thought almost kicked him over the edge.

Suddenly he felt Dick’s hand on his wrist, sliding down into his shorts, his fingers on Lew’s cock. He didn’t wrap his hand around Lew’s fist to help him, but instead rubbed the wet head of his cock with his thumb while Lew stroked. Lew cried out at the sensation, eyes rolling back in his head, losing all rhythm.

“Does it feel good?” Dick whispered. “I do it this way sometimes.”

Lew buried his face in Dick’s shoulder and came with such force that he almost fell on top of him. He felt like he hadn’t come in years, like it was new, and he let it wash over him with a long roll of pleasure not unlike the spreading heat of a good drink. It was sharper, dug deeper into him, and left him weak and shaking, hollow the way he had been hollow while sitting with Dick in the Alps, as if he had been cleansed from the inside out.

When he could move again he rolled off the bed, pulling off his undershirt and his shorts and wiping himself down, throwing the clothes on the floor beside the bed. Dick watched him silently until Lew reached for him and began to tug off his clothes as well, and then he allowed himself to be stripped. He stayed on his side of the bed, but Lew said “Come on, come here,” and pulled him close, kissing his neck and his chin, his ear, his temple, in an overflowing rush of gladness that made him feel like he could beat Wally Moore up Currahee two times over. Dick looked bashful but pleased when he was done, and Lew stayed up far after he did, letting that same gladness keep him awake.

*

In the morning the only indication he had of the night before was his nakedness. Dick was up and dressed already and poked his head in to wake Lew up as always. He was bright red when he did it but otherwise seemed the same. They walked to the plant together like they always did, silently, and Dick stopped by his office four times to make him sign paperwork with a little smirk on his face. It was a strange, out-of-body day, and at lunch Lew finally got up and went to smoke outside, hoping the freezing air would wake him up. He kept getting flashbacks to the night before and his concentration, never good at the best of times, was completely shot. The second time Dick had wandered into his office, he had looked him up and down and thought, without any prompting, _God, I made you come last night_ , and dropped his pen, spattering ink everywhere. The helpless, urgent noises he had made intruded on Lew’s mind when he was finalizing schedules for the following month and he found himself staring at the numbers with his face utterly blank. Julie was even less impressed with him than usual.

It was strange, knowing the truth now. He supposed he should have understood it before, but if Lew Nixon had a talent in this world it was self-protection. And he couldn’t entirely blame himself for not seeing what was in front of him. It looked nothing like what he had always imagined love must be like. He certainly hadn’t loved Kathy, which wasn’t her fault; he hadn’t thought himself capable of something that genuine. Of course he knew he was pretty fond of him – adored him, Blanche had said when they met in the city, _Lew simply adores you_ – but being confronted with the fact that there existed someone whose happiness was more important than his own was a little surprising. But then what exactly had he done since Toccoa days but look after Dick? He had carried out one successful campaign during the war and that was to keep Dick Winters from getting his stubborn head blown off.

He tore off his tie the moment he stepped into the house, stomped into the study, poured himself a drink, and shouted, “Dick, get in here, will you?”

On an ordinary day, Dick got home a little after he did, but today Lew had had to rewrite almost everything he touched and it was obviously not an ordinary day at all. Dick appeared from the general direction of the kitchen, where Lew thought he was probably making dinner. He leaned in the doorway looking as calm as if he had never even thought of being kissed senseless the night before.

“We have to talk about it,” Lew said. “I’m all for healthy repression, but today’s been just a pathetic mess, and I blame you, you – you Pennsylvanian.”

Dick tapped his fingers on the door frame, then moved into the room and sat in Lew’s chair, leaning forward with his hands clasped. “It seemed like a good idea to carry on like today was any other day.”

“Christ,” Lew said, giving his hair an irritable scrub. “I was starting to think I’d made the whole thing up.”

“Well, you didn’t,” Dick said, with such eminent reasonability that Lew wanted to throw something at him. Not his drink, he thought, cradling it to his chest. A chair, maybe.

“No,” he snapped instead. “And what are we going to do about it?”

Dick took a deep breath and said, rubbing his hands together and staring at them like they contained the mysteries of the world, “The thing is, Lew – I guess I’m pretty crazy about you. The way I should be for a girl. I’m sorry, but it’s the truth.”

“Crazy?” Lew asked.

“Yeah,” Dick said shortly. He was looking at his hands so intently that he didn’t seem to notice Lew sidling up until he was so close he was almost in his lap.

“It’s a good thing I was around to give you a job,” Lew said. All the day’s anger and petulant wrongness had evaporated. “You got moxie, kid, but you’re not very bright.”

“Don’t tease about this, Lew, please,” Dick said.

Lew set down his drink, pushed his way between Dick’s knees, and touched his cheek very gently so he’d look up. “I’m being honest here. You’ve got everyone fooled, but you’re a little stupid, huh?”

Dick didn’t pull away when Lew stroked the back of his neck, but sighed and closed his eyes like he was giving into a deep exhaustion.

“Look, I’m glad you’re crazy about me,” Lew murmured. “It makes things a lot easier. I won’t have to kidnap you to keep you here with me. I’m sure someone would pay the ransom eventually, but it could take years.”

A faint smile pulled at the corners of Dick’s mouth.

“Did you think I was going to send you packing?” Lew asked.

“Something like that.”

“Oh, you won’t get that lucky,” Lew said, feeling unbearably soft. “I’m keeping you locked away in my attic forever.”

“You get pretty violent when you’re sweet on someone,” Dick said.

“Who says I’m sweet on you? Maybe I don’t want to hire a housekeeper.”

Dick moved to stand up and Lew gave him just enough space to be too close. He felt the way he had the first night Dick had arrived in New Jersey, that same satisfaction that he should have known was joy. Dick watched his mouth a little too long and Lew raised an eyebrow.

“What?” Dick asked.

“Are you gonna kiss me?”

“That depends,” Dick said. “If you _were_ sweet on me, I might kiss you.”

“Say I am,” Lew said. “Say I wanted you to stay here with me forever. What would you do then?”

“I guess I’d do anything you asked me to,” Dick said in a low voice.

Lew opened his mouth to respond but Dick had already leaned down and cupped the back of Lew’s head, drawing him close to kiss him. He did it slow and thorough, like he was already an expert on how Lewis Nixon liked to be kissed. Lew sometimes forgot how quick he was and how well he adapted, thinking and planning ahead. He imagined Dick spending all day strategizing on how to touch him and moaned, and Dick took the opportunity to kiss along his jaw and then in a line from his ear all the way down the side of his neck, pushing his collar out of the way and sucking gently there where his shirt would cover it.

“If you keep it up we’re never going to make it to the bedroom,” Lew said, surprised at how shaky he sounded. He already felt thickheaded and hazy, and knew if they stayed in the study only a little longer he’d be willing to do it here on the floor.

“Wherever you want it,” Dick murmured against his skin.

“I like the sound of that,” he said, undoing Dick’s tie and popping the buttons open on his shirt. Dick rested his hands on Lew’s wrists as he did it, looking lost.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked.

“Stand still and let me get you naked.” Lew pushed his shirt off and tossed it on the desk chair, then the tie, before he went after what he really wanted and undid his pants. He wanted to linger, to run his fingers over the heavy outline of his cock through the fabric and tease him, to see how long it would take for him to come just from the slow steady pressure of Lew’s hand squeezing him. But he was too eager to really be slow and steady, and once Dick was naked all bets were off. Dick bit his lip and tried to stand still while Lew ran awestruck hands over his flushed skin, the soft, sparse red hair on his chest, his nipples. When Lew started to stroke him, unable to stop himself from touching any longer, he grabbed Lew’s shoulders and held on, moaning unsteadily with his teeth clenched tight like he was trying to keep himself in check.

“Why aren’t you taking your clothes off?” he gasped.

“In a minute,” Lew said, lost in touching him, “come here,” and his hands were on Dick’s hips so they could slide against each other while Lew kissed him. He felt an echo of the night before, the same pleasure and electric thrill at the hard pressure of his cock. It seemed to make Dick too excited to keep holding still and he rubbed against him shamelessly, his breath stuttering when Lew’s hands ran over his lower back and then his ass, spreading him before slipping curious fingers down further.

He brushed his fingers there and Dick’s hips jolted forward with a breathless shout.

“Oh yeah?” Lew said, raising an eyebrow. He did it again and got the same response. “Well, what do you know.”

Dick was absolutely scarlet. “Is that – I guess that’s not normal.”

Lew smiled against his neck. “I thought country boys knew all about this kind of thing.”

“I don’t,” Dick said. “I don’t know anything.”

“Yeah,” Lew said. “I’m pretty good at guiding you though, right?”

Dick nodded. When Lew resumed his touching, this time with more purpose, he clutched Lew’s shoulders even harder and shook all over.

“Did you ever think about this?” Lew asked between kisses.

“No. Yes,” Dick said thickly. “I didn’t know about this. But I thought about you.”

Lew pressed the tip of his middle finger inside. “Yeah? Tell me about it.”

“Lew,” he moaned, rocking back on his heels. “I’m going to – I’m about to make a mess all over your suit.”

“It’s all right if you do,” Lew said, but released him.

“Let me – let me show you,” Dick said. His face was still red, his breathing hectic. “I’ll show you,” he said again, reaching for Lew’s belt slowly, as if he might be slapped away any second. Lew watched his hands wonderingly, first undoing the belt, the buttons on his trousers, then spreading the fly, tugging his shorts down just enough to pull out his cock. His grip was gentle until he figured out how to twist his hand to get the right angle.

“You want to just play with me?” Lew said unevenly.

“No,” Dick said with a tight smile. He knelt with some awkwardness, one knee and then the other, and Lew groaned – too loud – the moment he realized what Dick intended to do.

“ _Jesus_ ,” he said.

“You might have to help me out a little,” Dick said.

“Oh,” Lew said. “Oh, this isn’t gonna last long.”

His knees were already loose before Dick leaned in, and his hand flailed out and caught the desk just as Dick’s warm mouth surrounded him and he started to suck in tentative pulls that grew a little more confident with each pass. The other hand went to the side of Dick’s face and he could feel his jaw working as he sucked. When he looked down he saw that Dick was watching him.

“This is what you daydreamed about?” he asked.

Dick nodded as best he could, sliding down a little farther. Lew moaned, leaning his head back helplessly. It wasn’t particularly smooth or rhythmic – Lew kept rocking his hips no matter how hard he tried not to and Dick didn’t know enough to move with him, and Lew wanted to guide him but knew he was too far gone to be coherent – but it was still so good and it was even better when he realized afresh, over and over, that this was Dick doing it, that he wanted it, that he had _dreamed_ about it –

“I, god, oh god,” he gasped, so close he was trembling. “Please, I’m gonna go off in your mouth if you don’t stop.”

Dick moaned around him, clutching the back of Lew’s thigh hard, and Lew lost it. He had just enough sense to push at Dick’s arm and gasp his name before he was seized by pleasure, a rush so great that at first he couldn’t breathe. He could only curl over, bracing himself on Dick’s shoulders. His breath caught and then sobbed out and he realized Dick had pulled off him and was rubbing the back of his leg, still watching him with his eyes dazed.

Lew knelt and pulled him close, sucking a little at his bottom lip and startling at the taste of himself there on Dick’s mouth. It was dizzying, kissing him, feeling how wound up he was.

“Tell me more, tell me,” Lew murmured, urgent. “Did you like it? Is that what you wanted?”

“Yes – yes,” he panted. “Not during the war – I didn’t even touch myself. Didn’t want to be distracted. After – I couldn’t think of anything else.”

Lew remembered one of Dick’s letters, written while he was still in Austria. _I can’t think of anything but going home_ , it said. _You must be hearing rumors of the surliest officer in Europe. I’ll be an absolute bear until I get to Pennsylvania and then New Jersey_. Lew could admit now that those sentences had made him stupidly happy and that he had read them often enough to memorize them. That Dick had been dreaming of this the whole time added an entirely new dimension to it.

He pressed Dick back onto the rug by the shoulders, not trusting his own voice, and kissed him down, down, hovering over him like a victor. Dick moaned into his mouth over and over, arching into thin air, and Lew finally broke away and settled down beside him. He sucked on his fingers, slicking them up fast and slipping them down between Dick’s legs. He teased once, twice, before pressing his middle finger inside, all the way this time. Dick pushed down onto it, hips jerking with a frantic desperation Lew wouldn’t have thought possible. He was coming almost before Lew knew what was happening, tensing and crying out wildly, his hand like a vise on Lew’s arm.

In a moment he relaxed a little and quieted into shuddering gasps of relief. His eyes were shut tight and once Lew had removed his fingers he turned and pressed his face into Lew’s shoulder, his breath still coming hard.

“Are you all right? I didn’t hurt you?” Lew murmured, stroking his hair and pressing a kiss right under his ear. He wanted to tease him but tenderness had hit him over the head like a bat.

“I’m all right,” Dick said into his shoulder, shivering.

“Good. Yeah. That’s good,” Lew said, and continued to spread kisses over his skin to hide how shaken he was. He hit a ticklish spot once in a while and Dick squirmed but didn’t pull away, and finally he flopped onto his back and sighed hard.

“I’ve never done that,” Dick said after a while.

“I know,” Lew said, still feeling much too soft, too indulgent. Dick’s hair, which Lew had messed up and then attempted to smooth down again, was sticking out in tufts on one side, and Lew’s heart gave a painful bound.

“You’re quieter than I thought you’d be,” Dick said thoughtfully, and when Lew nudged him his lips twitched. “I thought you’d yell the house down.”

“No, that was you.”

“Yeah, well, it felt nice.”

“Nice,” Lew said. “ _Nice_. That’s a fine way to thank a man who just ruined his favorite rug for you.”

“I’ll clean it,” Dick said.

“No, it’s – you don’t want to know how much it cost or where it’s from,” Lew said. “I think it might melt if water touches it.”

Dick groaned, laughing. “What do you think is happening to it right now?”

“Could explode,” Lew said. “We should move.”

“There are six beds in the house,” Dick agreed.

“But I think I want to make you feel nice again right now,” Lew said, pulling his arm out from under Dick and getting on all fours, kissing his way down Dick’s back.

Dick sighed in pleasure. “That’s altruistic of you, Lew.”

“You know me,” Lew said. “Anything for the cause.”

*

They took a bath together in the big tub in Lew’s room that evening, stretched out with Lew behind and Dick leaning back against him. Lew refrained from smoking for Dick’s sake, but assured him that smoking in the bathtub was one of life’s great pleasures.

They were easy with each other, comfortable. Lew supposed he should have expected that, after years of knowing Dick as well as he did, but then he hadn’t expected anything at all.

“So you’re crazy about me,” he said. “Tell me more about that.”

“What do you want to know?” Dick asked. The tub wasn’t long enough to contain either of them, and his legs were sticking out of the water.

“Pretend I’m your intelligence officer and I’m gathering data,” Lew said.

“Well,” Dick said, “Do you remember when that bullet hit your helmet in Holland? I knew then. Ignored it, though.”

“Near-death experience, got it,” Lew murmured. His drink sat on a chair beside the tub, gathering condensation on the sides. When they had first gotten into the tub, Dick picked up the tumbler and took a sip under Lew’s astonished eyes. _It’s a day of firsts_ , he had said with a small smile, handing the glass back to Lew.

“I was sure when we climbed to get the Eidelweiss.” Dick splashed him a little bit. “The war was over, but I was so broken up because you were leaving.”

“I think I knew then too,” Lew said. “What else, come on. Tell me how much you mooned.”

“There was a night where you were pretty drunk and I had to almost carry you back to your room at that inn, and you were trying to talk to me but your lips kept touching my neck.” Dick tapped his fingers under his ear. “I couldn’t think about anything else for days.”

“That’s not too bad.” Lew leaned forward and pressed his lips against the spot, then spent some minutes kissing him there, drowsy and slow in the heat of the bathtub.

“No, it’s bad,” Dick said eventually, ducking his head. “You left your jacket behind, remember? I wore it. Slept in it.”

“Wow,” he said, grinning. “That’s. Dick. That’s sad.”

“Even worse, I still have it,” Dick said.

“That thing has to smell like a pine tree rolled in an ashtray and soaked in turpentine,” Lew said.

“You should have seen my mother trying to air it out. I think she thought I’d found some bad influences in the Army.”

“The worst,” Lew agreed. “Just look at you. A hard-drinking man.”

“Hmm,” Dick said, and settled against him contentedly until the bath water grew cold.

*

The astonishing thing was how little anything changed – from the outside. From the inside everything was shaken up. Lew wasn’t used to feeling anything too much to contain it or drown it. The urge to lay everything he had at Dick’s feet was more than a little horrifying, especially given that Dick, outside the bedroom, was the picture of serenity as usual. There was something rapturous about each one of these new encounters, even in waking up in the middle of the night to guide Dick back to bed. Now he was allowed to tell Dick in a low voice, just between the two of them, how he loved him, to hold onto him every night and to be held, to take care of him in ways he had wanted to do before without quite knowing it.

But he was careful with him and didn’t understand why until one evening when Dick was at his desk and Lew was on his way through the room. Affection for the precise stillness of Dick’s posture while he was concentrating made Lew run his fingers over the back of his neck as he passed. Dick looked up and Lew thought he’d be brushed off, told to be patient and wait until he was finished. But Dick grabbed his hand and slowly kissed his wrist before letting him go. He turned back to his work with a little smile and Lew was left staring down at him in what he realized was an almost comically besotted state.

It was a familiar feeling, and he knew, settling down in his chair, that things hadn’t really changed at all. He had always been this way about Dick. He had always wanted to throw aside everything else and tend to him. It was only just now that he realized Dick had been doing the same for him, in the ways he knew how. He remembered the evening after the retreat at Eindhoven, sitting on the edge of Dick’s foxhole and laying out strategy with him. Once they had gone over it from beginning to end, picking through what had worked and what had not, Dick finally relaxed and leaned back in the foxhole, his knee pressed comfortably against Lew’s.

“That was bad,” he said.

“Yeah,” Lew agreed. “You all right?”

“Not really.” Dick squinted up at him. “I guess I’m pretty sore about it.”

“No kidding.” Lew patted his leg. “Well, Harry and I’ll get you cheered up.”

“I don’t want to talk to Harry about this kind of thing,” Dick said. “Just you.”

“Lucky me,” Lew said, but he did feel lucky, and now when he thought back over the time they’d known each other, he could see how Dick had carefully given him bits and pieces of himself that he wouldn’t want anyone else to know: the times he was defeated and sad and scared and angry, when he thought something was bullshit and when he found something funny, when he was petty – and he could be very petty – and unfair and proud and stubborn. He was a difficult man, damned near inscrutable, but he had let Lew know him, had wanted Lew to know him.

Lew looked at his watch. In one hour and twenty-three minutes, Dick would shut his book and lay down his pencil, and his entire focus would shift from work to Lew. He’d already be hard by the time he stood and crossed the room to touch Lew, like he always was – or maybe he was hard while he was studying, anticipating what was going to happen; Lew liked the thought of him sitting there trying to concentrate but getting more and more excited. He always fell apart fast, like whatever was holding him together disappeared once Lew touched him.

Tonight was no different; he began the encounter quiet, spine straight, but in short order he was rocking back hard against Lew with breathless, singular intent. When he was close and Lew was hitting him at exactly the right angle he became less and less coordinated, leaning forward on his elbows and hanging his head, and Lew had to hold him close and pull his hips back faster, harder. Watching him dissolve into it and go mindless, unable to be calm, always brought Lew off, sometimes even before Dick finished.

“Lew,” Dick said afterward, chest heaving, “that was so nice.”

“Oh, was it?” Lew grinned. _Nice_ was a superlative for Dick. He had a hard time talking during sex but when he did it was to say that it was the nicest thing he’d ever felt.

“I dreamed we did it in my office the other night,” Dick said. His eyes were closed, but his mouth quirked.

“On top of the new shift checklists,” Lew said. “How could I resist?”

“I’m not going to be able to sit in that chair without looking guilty for weeks,” Dick said.

Lew sat up. “How about you sit at my desk and I’ll sit at yours?”

“I couldn’t concentrate at your desk,” Dick said. “I’d just be thinking about you.”

“Yeah?” Lew asked. “You think about me at work?”

“I’m always thinking about you, Lew.” Dick rubbed the top of his foot. “Well, sometimes I’m thinking about firing Joe, Jr.”

“Me too,” Lew said, “but half the guys would quit in protest.”

“It would almost be worth it.”

Dick rolled out of the bed and went to clean up, bringing back a damp washcloth for Lew. Lew couldn’t convince him to sleep naked for anything, although he had conceded to wearing shorts and an undershirt. Maybe once the dreams get better, he had said, and although the dreams _had_ gotten better, going from three or four a week to once a month or so, he was still afraid he’d go wandering outside.

“You know,” he said when he’d crawled back into the bed, “we still haven’t gone to Chicago.”

“I kinda hoped you’d forgotten that,” Lew said.

“Are you reneging on a solemn promise?”

“Yeah,” Lew said. “Right now I want to be in Key West.”

“Civilized place?” Dick asked, and Lew nodded. “For civilized men?”

“Well, I’m civilized,” Lew said. “Jury’s still out on you, you’re practically naked.”

“All right,” Dick said. “We’ll go there.”

“And Hawaii,” Lew added. “And Brazil. Arizona. The Sahara. The surface of the sun.”

“Big rock,” Dick mumbled, falling asleep.

“Yeah, sure,” Lew said indulgently, brushing his hair back from his forehead. “Big rock it is.”

Dick smiled. "Lew," he said. "She took the dog."

It took Lew a minute to catch on, and then he laughed. "She really did," he said, "and she can take anything else she wants."

*

In April when the snow was melting, Lew went into the woods behind the house and found one of his own dog tags, and one of Dick’s. No matter how hard he tried, and he went out occasionally for years afterward to look, he couldn’t find the others. He looped the two together on one chain and left it for Dick on the bureau. It disappeared and Lew knew he had taken it, assuming that he had tossed them in with all his other untouched things from the war, until he bought Dick a new wallet one year and saw him transferring the tags from one to the other. He had cut a little pocket in, put the tags inside, and sewn it back up.

“What if your wallet gets stolen?” he asked.

“Well, then, the tags will be safe and I’ll still be here with you,” Dick said, and that was that.

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from [Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-KAvPbO8JY), which I listened to pretty much constantly while writing this. My upstairs neighbors also moved and I am 80% certain the two are unconnected.
> 
> I can be found on tumblr [here](http://jane-kerkovich.tumblr.com/)!


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